Chris Faraone at the Boston Phoenix reports “As the weather heats up, so does the class struggle“:
With spring protests planned from Boston to the Bay Area, Occupy remains an unwieldy and unpredictable animal. Though there’s more and more connectivity between organizers nationwide, activists in different cities are pursuing local actions that are only tied to the larger effort in spirit, while hoping that small wins add up to a big kick in the one-percent’s pants.
And they’re joined by a newly invigorated core of allies. A conglomerate of established labor groups and non-profits — banded together as the “99% Spring” — has converged in many places with Occupy.
The various factions don’t always play well together. Some Occupy hands have been hostile to older-school progressive outfits, and suspicious of their ties to the Democratic party. Taken together, though, they have a whole lot of commotion on deck for the spring and summer:
* While Occupiers have been working regionally on everything from health care, to immigration, to public transportation, the movement and its allies still have their sights set on large banks and financial institutions. Specifically, they’ll be targeting upcoming shareholder meetings, including one this week for Wells-Fargo in San Francisco.
* On the week leading up to and on July 4, a swarm of Occupy sympathizers will flood Philadelphia, where the Declaration of Independence was drafted. However, as of now the horde will be comprised of two rival groups — one organized by an Occupy spinoff outfit called the “99 Percent Declaration,” and one made up of original-flavor Occupiers.
* In addition to pro-labor May Day marches organized by Occupy and labor activists on the first of next month — which are expected to take place in more than 130 locations across the nation — both groups are also planning major actions at the late-May NATO summit in Chicago, as well as the September conventions for both major political parties, and many events in between…
The general strike and bridge offensive in the Bay will be coordinated between the Golden Gate Bridge Labor Coalition, Occupy, and other participating groups. Likewise, May Day festivities in New York — expected to be the biggest in the country — are very much a unified front between Occupiers and their more mainstream affiliates. Due to concerns about arrests by some participating groups, OWS organizers even broke their pattern of sidestepping city ordinances, and pulled a permit for their march from Union Square to Battery Park (just one of more than a dozen events scheduled for May Day). Some Occupy purists resent the decision, and will be carrying out autonomous actions. To the public, though, the aerial shot may look like one big benevolent mob stretched like an octopus across Manhattan…
Josh Harkinson at Mother Jones reports from the Left Coast:
On the first of May, the Occupy Wall Street movement hopes to leverage the labor holiday known as May Day and muster enough people power to blockade the Golden Gate Bridge—assuming, that is, that striking bridge workers take the lead. “We can’t do an action for them; we have to do the action with them,” says Lauren Smith, a spokeswoman for Occupy Oakland. An union organizer for the bridge workers had no comment on their plans, but alluded to something big: “Our actions are going to speak louder than words.”
While the presumptive bridge protest is just one among dozens of demonstrations being planned for 40 cities on May 1, it illustrates how the movement is simultaneously getting bolder and more strategic in its bid to remain a relevant part of the national conversation. Occupy organizers promise that Tuesday will be bigger than anything we saw from the movement last fall. “May Day will be the big kickoff of Phase 2 of Occupy,” says Marissa Holmes, an early OWS organizer. “I think we will see a lot of people in the streets taking more militant actions than they had in the past.” But bringing out the numbers—and rebooting a movement that has largely faded from the headlines—will require a greater level of partnership with organized labor and kindred protest movements….
“Occupy needs to play a part in electoral politics, it needs to work outside electoral politics, it needs to be a thousand-ring circus,” says Columbia University journalism professor Todd Gitlin, a 1960s-era president of Students for a Democratic Society and author of the forthcoming book Occupy Nation… He worries that occupiers are overly paranoid about being co-opted by would-be allies in the political realm. For example, Adbusters, the magazine whose call for protest sparked Occupy Wall Street, recently blamed the 99% Spring—an activist training effort led by groups like MoveOn.org and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)—for “the derailment of our movement.” (Click here to read my piece on the 99% Spring [“How Occupy Co-Opted MoveOn.org”], in which I attended one of the training sessions.)…
Ben Walsh at Felix Salmon’s Reuters blog points out that it’s always good news for America’s premier growth industry, (In)security Services:
If Occupy is searching for a way back into broader relevance, it’s already on the radar of their main target. Bloomberg’s Max Abelson looks at how banks are joining forces and working with police and private security firms to track OWS’s return act. Abelson gives his interviewees enough rope to hang themselves on their own tone-deaf quotes:
Banks cooperating on surveillance are like elk fending off wolves in Yellowstone National Park, [Brian McNary, director of global risk at Pinkerton Consulting & Investigations] said. While other animals try in vain to sprint away alone, elk survive attacks by forming a ring together, he said…
And the Grey Lady casts a jaundiced, rheumy eye further forward:
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Hay and grass seed cover the bare spots on the lawn in front of the stately old City Hall where Occupy Charlotte’s camp held its ground for nearly four months. The occupiers are gone now and the protest movement quieted after arrests, a new anticamping ordinance and, to a degree, the group’s own missteps along the way.
But as the grass begins to take root, so does a resilient Occupy Charlotte. A small group still meets regularly in the city, participating in targeted protests and planning for some critical dates already circled on the calendar: May 9, when the annual Bank of America shareholders meeting is held in Charlotte, and, more important, Sept. 3, when the Democratic National Convention comes to town….
… In Florida, Occupy Tampa is involved in planning similar efforts for the Republican National Convention, which will be held there in August, but the group has had smaller protests than those in Charlotte and the city has proposed a “clean zone” limiting where demonstrations can be held.
c u n d gulag
Yes, by all means, let’s pick up and continue the “Occupy” movement.
But I don’t think we’ll make the headway we need until the “Occupiers” stay through, and protest at least one entire long, cold, winter.
An “Occupy” version of Valley Forge, so to speak, to make the point that nothing will deter the movement – ‘neither rain, nor snow, nor gloom of night…’
Sadly, my ass is too old, fat, and handicapped to help do that, so that’s easy for me to say.
CaptainHaddock
Shutting down a bridge is counterproductive and self indulgent. Unless your goals are making countless people late for work, appointments, etc and generally making the public loathe you. Why not go slashing peoples tires or lighting bags of crap on people’s porches while you are at it?
cmorenc
@CaptainHaddock:
THAT. I cannot fathom why the Oakland faction of Occupy is repeatedly Hell-bent on choosing protest blockades which couldn’t be better designed to mobilize the population AGAINST the movement than if the Koch Brothers designed it themselves to discredit the movement. What the Hell is wrong with these idiots; they manage to nationally discredit the occupy movement with this self-indulgent crap.
Yevgraf
It would only be better for inspiring hatred if they included giant puppets and drum circles.
Do California cops have a donation line for extra supplies of pepper spray and the replacement of batons broken over the heads of protestors? I want to contribute.
You’d think that instead of making thousands of regular folk miserable, they could do something targets at at the one percent – protest a country club, a society wedding, a “preen and pretend to care about a cause” gala. Instead, they display their stupidity again.
Linda Featheringill
And yet, the Occupiers have done more to educate the general population about the class struggle than we ever did during our decades of wise and intelligent argument and protest.
I don’t understand everything they do, either, but I admire what they’ve accomplished so far.
“Show me what democracy looks like. This is what democracy looks like.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Linda Featheringill:
A popular chant at the Madison protests in February of 2011 as well.
Cromagnon
@Linda Featheringill:
Uh, what exactly have they accomplished again? Other than shitting and pissing on the sidewalks and making a general nuisance of themselves?
And as far as I can tell, the ‘general population’ doesn’t even give them a second thought. So don’t kid yourself
Yevgraf
@Linda Featheringill:
Meh. They preached to the choir.
Everybody else, not so much. Everybody else was reminded why the “more progressive than thou” hippies need the living shit stomped out of them early and often – zero sense of proportion, poor strategic planning sense, and an overweening desire to create cultures of mooching within their protests.
El Cid
It’s already been like a year and Occupy hasn’t sorted everything out in inventing a widespread grassroots egalitarian movement for me. I demand they do better, quicker.
Yevgraf
@El Cid:
FIFY
Li
Why is it that upon the mere mention of Occupy all of these violence fetishists come out of their dungeons with their head breaking and $hit stomping?
Why don’t you go stroke your cat-o-nine-tails for a while and leave us alone?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Yevgraf: I’m going to give OWS the credit for Obama’s change in tone about taking care of the poor rather than doing more to cut spending and balancing the budget.
El Cid
@Yevgraf: You’re right. Just about everyone who studies such things credit the spontaneous movement with some and perhaps most of the change in US policy discussion back from complete deficit / debt focus to inequality, but other than that, nothing, and as a consumer of other peoples’ organizing efforts, I want more.
El Cid
I guess you could look at OWS either as a failure as it has not spontaneously created a grassroots get-out-the-vote effort or whatever; or you could look at it as a much more effective response to dischoate popular revulsion at extreme inegalitarianism and super-elitist policies than either nothing or sporadic outraged rioting.
This is a country in which nation-wide popular organizing around themes of economic fairness etc. does not exist. There isn’t any significant precedent which comes to mind, outside the efforts in poorer areas and communities of color by ACORN, which was so effectively destroyed by racist fraud videos and general rapid elite consensus.
I really don’t know what people might cite as a better example, unless the argument is made (and it is, and it can be a legitimate one) that such a movement is not needed, or counter-effective, and so forth.
C
@cmorenc: I saw fliers on this while I was recently in S.F. The Occupiers are inserting themselves into negotiations between Golden Gate labor unions and the city/municipal governments. SF-area unions are known for being very generous to their members, and not particularly open to outsiders. This feels like the Occupy folks are getting used by an entrenched economic interest.
The economic fairness issue has more to do with political influence as exerted by plutocrats in the private sector on electoral politics. I understand that all politics is local, but the political power enabling these problems lies well away from this particular battle.
keestadoll
From the start with OWS, I repeatedly BEGGED them (locally and via their message boards) to channel their efforts towards specific legislative action, like Glass-Steagal or Audit the FED. If income inequality is the focus, illustrate the conditions that keep that inequality entrenched. Money pours in for support last year–buy ad time perhaps. Focus focus focus. Get some frakking focus.
Ira-NY
Occupy was an important political moment. It is not a movement.
barath
I think the big mistake that was made was that they started confusing the tactic (occupying things) with the end goal. Now it seems occupying things is the end goal, with a little media exposure for the issues as the cherry on the top.
What if instead they used the tactic towards the end goal? Say, occupying city council meetings by showing up en masse not to disrupt but to participate (and overwhelm)? I’m reminded of Obama’s work with Atlgeld (sp?) gardens, a housing project in Chicago that had asbestos, and he organized them and marched to a city meeting and made themselves heard to get asbestos removed.
And not just city council meetings. School boards. Transportation district meetings. Local economic council meetings. Chamber of commerce meetings. Etc.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ)
@El Cid: You’re wrong about there being no precedent. I’m currently reading There is Power in a Union by Philip Dray and the original labor movement fought this fight beginning in the late 1800s through the 1930s. That battle is at least in part why we had several decades of broadly shared prosperity from the ’40s to the ’80s.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ)
I will add that all the squabbling among these groups about who are the true believers and who are the splitters was lampooned to hilarious effect by Monty Python in Life of Brian. It’s not quite so funny when it’s happening in real life. Maybe the Occupiers should watch that movie and learn something.
Yevgraf
@El Cid:
Yeah, if Hamsher, Kos and their followers comprise “everybody”.
Yevgraf
@barath:
That would make sense. Regrettably, it will never happen, as the slime which worked its way to the top consists of the sort of people who fetishize the aggressive panhandler who shits on the sidewalk, and champion those who make a habit of consistently bad life decisions.
We need a return to trade union populism, the sort of movement that values work and responsibility.
Forum Transmitted Disease
I am really hoping this is not the case, but I see nothing that indicates that the tattered remnants of Occupy is going to be anything but a giant pile of fail when they try to get “restarted” in a week.
People who have to work for a living will never be able to organize like the idle rich can.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@cmorenc: It’s the Oakland Black Anarchist movement, the same folks who tried to destroy downtown Oakland when Oscar Grant was murdered. They just took the “Occupy” name, but they’re the same people who’ve been smashing up people’s property from one end of the Bay Area to the other since the seventies. All they give a shit about is burning down stores and smashing cop cars.
The national Occupy movement doesn’t know who these people are who have appropriated their name, unfortunately. They need to distance themselves from these idiots post-haste.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Yevgraf: You must be another Bay Area refugee like myself. I considered myself a liberal and a hippie when I moved there.
By the time I left, I considered myself a conservatively-leaning moderate (now that I’m back in SoCal, I’m magically the most liberal person anyone knows) and swore I was going to kick the shit out of the next feces-smeared “hippie” junkie who took a dump on my porch and would then ask for a cigarette or bus fare.
Once the news folks figure out a way to transmit smell, those people are fucked.
different-church-lady
They lost the thread early, when they went from “Occupy Wall Street” to “Occupy (blank)”.
As Daffy Duck said, “Pronoun trouble.” The subject of the action went from Banksters to themselves, from “they” to “we”. And the action itself went from protest to egotistical theater. Someone needs to explain to me which 1%’ers have an office on the Golden Gate Bridge.
They’ve managed to pull an amazing stunt: every mention of Occupy now makes me cringe. And I’m on their side.
AA+ Bonds
I will rarely critique Occupy but constant hyperbolic declaration of ‘general strike’ may not help Americans value the real thing which requires serious coordination among workers
Not to mention that general strikes should be the last resort of the left given their effects, and the only reason these Occupy declarations have avoided this is because we still have so much work to do to make general strikes possible
AA+ Bonds
@Linda Featheringill:
^ overall though, liberal concern junkies should remember the above… so many armchair liberals couldn’t and can’t wait to dismiss Occupy tactics before they are even used, and y’all would have had a hell of a time this year and the last if the left had listened to worrywart liberals instead of pushing ahead to meet the American people
AA+ Bonds
And as this thread indicates, BJ’s holier than thou comment snobs have been among the worst – once again, it is a good thing for the left (and those making the comments) that no one listens to them on this one
Occupy is the best thing that has happened to both the left and to liberals in years
AA+ Bonds
The simple truth is that effective left actions will always shock a sizable portion of liberals, and that is the liberals’ problem. I encourage everyone here to free your minds from genteel DLCism and realize that these tactics are the reason more people are listening to what you have to say about the Right
AA+ Bonds
I mean, the discussion here seems based on the completely wrong idea that OWS had anything but success – it’s like y’all are waiting around to receive the Kochs’ message and disseminate it
different-church-lady
@AA+ Bonds: Occupy mk II doesn’t have a problem with turning off moderate democrats. Occupy mk II has a problem with turning off the general population.
You’re making the same mistake that the article focuses on: friction between fractions. The world is bigger than the left and the Kotches.
cmorenc
@AA+ Bonds:
We aren’t being “concern junkies” to angrily worry that what the Oakland group is going to achieve with the attempted bridge blockade is to piss off not just everyone in the Bay Area (including folks otherwise strongly inclined to be sympathetic and supportive of the occupy movement), but to discredit the rest of the occupy movement nationally and hand an enormous propaganda coup to precisely the assholes they’re supposed to be helping us fight.
Gee, whocouldaknown that the tactic of blockading a main commuter bridge in the Bay Area will achieve nothing except to counterproductively piss everyone off and degrade the image of the whole occupy movement, “before it is even used”? Well excuuuse us for being so presumptuous with our predictions before we let them try it and see what happens.
AA+ Bonds
@cmorenc:
Who coulda known something you are making up off the top of your head? That would probably reduce to you, although the number of people who will gleefully exploit your line is of course much larger and very well funded
They must be glad you work for free, assuming you do
AA+ Bonds
@different-church-lady:
“Occupy mk II” – that is pretty cute as propaganda lines go. Pretend that the exact same concerns aren’t being pursued by the exact same people … and just as the Occupy working groups begin to deliver policy white papers that could translate into legislation and regulation…
Very interesting that as soon as the Occupy handbook comes out with Krugman attached that these false narratives go into turbo drive among supposed liberals
At least it is blindingly obvious that any attempt to cast this movement as somehow different from that of a few months ago is a blatant lie
AA+ Bonds
Here is the smart response to Occupy as offered by wise liberals such as Krugman: “You have some good points, and we will do what we can to help.”
Some Loser
Yo, AA+ Bonds, I get trying to defend Occupy, but it should be okay to criticize, right? Y’know, like we do with Obama all the time. As you wisely advise, I might add. Pushing them to the left. Pointing out their mistakes, so they can fix them.
cmorenc
@AA+ Bonds:
Fair request: please explain:
a) what tactical or strategic goals of the occupy movement on behalf of the 99% and against the 1% are being served by blockading the bridge?
b) what is the blockade intended to communicate and to whom (what audience?)
c) how does it further the goal of raising favorable public consciousness about the unfairness of the economic class divide in this country?
We’ll be interested in whatever articulate explanation you have of why this particular tactic is supposed to constructively work.
Liberty60
@cmorenc:
I myself am unsure of the wisdom of the bridge blockade.
But to the larger point, there is a lot of wisdom in doing things like street blockades and marches that inconvenience everyone.
The point of protests is to disrupt the normal conversation and force our way into people’s consciousness and command attention.
Our audience is the rest of the middle class, that huge swath that swings elections; we aren’t able to buy 30 second ads, but we can force our way into the national consciousness and conversation through things like protests and townhalls where we disrupt the carefully crafted narrative that frames every dialogue in favor of the 1%.
Of course, it needs to be carefully and strategically, with disciplined message control and tactics; and yes, if poorly done can easily backfire.
But until we have a network that can run shows like “Occupy & Friends” 24/7, we have to make do with what resources we have.
If people stop talking about OMYGOD Teh DEFICIT and start talking about every issue in terms of the 1% v 99% we will win.
Joe Bohemouth
I think the Occupy critics here underestimate just how clueless most Americans are about class politics. People really don’t understand how wide the wealth and income gaps are, let alone why they are so big. Not to mention think that CEO’s are their friend.
I don’t really care if Occupy pisses off everyone in the country and makes themselves a national pariah/laughingstock.
The point isn’t to get more Occupiers, it’s to make class politics visible. Yes, middle America, these issues do exist. Yes, it’s okay to be pissed off about them.
Not everyone has to like Occupy. They are not running for office. They are bringing visibility to inequality and to ANGER OVER INEQUALITY. You don’t have to be popular to do that. Being popular might rleven be counter productive.
Tyro
@cmorenc: Hard to say. Honestly, Occupy activists are smarter than I am when it comes to tactics, so anything I claim is essentially armchair quarterbacking.